This Christmas, How About We Have REAL Unity in Philippine Basketball?

With the Smart-Gilas 2.0 (or is it 2.01?) roster finally being released, any self-respecting fan of Philippine Basketball cannot help
but swell with national pride and, at the same time, cringe with a mouthful of
vomit.

The team coach Chot Reyes has built is rag-tag at best,
but it will have to do, given the current circumstances. He has had to make do
with the cards dealt to him – such unfortunate cards at that – and, to be
honest, he could’ve done much worse.

Coach Chot Reyes has his work cut out for him just a few months
removed from his big win in the 2012 Jones Cup.

Before I continue on with this thinly-veiled yuletide
rant, let me say this as a warning to coach Chot – sir, you are being fattened
for the slaughter. I mean that not with any hint of sarcasm or condescension.

Only blunt truth and genuine concern.

And a little trifle with a pun.

With two key build-up tourneys coming up, coach Chot has
had to deal with squabbles so familiar in our corner of the basketball world.
He has had to write letters, pleas if you will, for certain players to be
released by their “mother clubs” to play for their motherland. As was expected,
these pleas fell on deaf ears.

So now, despite his best intentions, coach Chot will have
to go to war not with the elite guard of Pinoy hoops, but with the upstarts. He
will go toe-to-toe against some of Asia’s fiercest and finest with boys instead
of men. In lieu of battle-hardened veterans, Gilas 2.0 will be bannered by
freshly-minted collegians who will undoubtedly receive their first scars in
Dubai and Hong Kong.

This is the path that has been laid out for us.

Nay.

This is the path we have laid out for ourselves.

Doomed to failure? Perhaps, but let it NOT be said we were
beaten by the hot hands of Korea’s Yang Dong-Geun, the overwhelming size of
Iran’s Asghar Kardoust, or the playmaking of Jordan’s Sam Dahglas.

The true culprit behind the impending doom of Gilas 2.0
can be summed up in one word – DISUNITY.

Let’s look back in time and go through a quick history
lesson.

Back in 2009, the Philippine Supreme Court, by overturning
a lower court decision and upholding an earlier order by the Court of Appeals,
formally, and with finality, legitimized the entity we now know as the Samahang
Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP). That was supposed to be the last stumbling block
Philippine Basketball had to hurdle to, at last, unify all stakeholders and
rally them behind a singular cause – bringing Pinoy hoops back to its rightful
place atop the continent.

Fast-forward to the end of 2012 – we are STILL languishing
in the pits of DISUNITY. We may be “as one” on paper, but, in reality, many of
the stakeholders in local basketball are scattered about, minding not the
greater good, but their own selfish objectives.

Or, at least, that is how things appear.

All our favorite local leagues – the PBA, the UAAP, the
NCAA, the PCCL, and the PBA D-League among others – are under the banner of the
SBP, but, again, that’s only as good as empty words. Out there on the hardwood,
when push comes to shove, when duty calls and our flag beckons, these entities,
and the people behind them, fight and bicker amongst themselves for their own
distinct “interests.”

Unity goes under the table, and disharmony is the rule of
the day.

I am not privy to the inner workings of these leagues. I
do not know the full depth and extent of the relationships and connections
among each league, each team, each player, each coach, and each “important
personality.” All I know is underneath the unified banner of the SBP, there is
an undercurrent of disunity threatening to sink everything we have built,
modest as it may seem, for the past few years.

The gist is this: as a country, we want to see our
national team win a big tournament, but we (or THEY) don’t want to do what is
necessary. Instead of holding hands, we point fingers. Instead of voicing out
support, we hurl poorly-processed criticisms.

Instead of sending the best of the best, we send the best
of the rest.

But, again, the best of the rest will have to do. We will
burden them with 7,107 islands’ worth of expectations, and, should they fail,
we will crucify them with impunity. Worse, should they succeed, we will
ill-recognize them and, instead, cast doubt on their glory. It’s the
Smart-Gilas catch-22.

Think about it.

Since the SBP’s inception, or, if you want to go back a
little earlier – since the FIBA ban was lifted, we have NEVER EVER sent the
best possible team we can assemble. We had SMC-Team Pilipinas (coached by
Reyes, too) in 2007. That team finished 9th in Tokushima, Japan
despite beating China (fine, it was just a shell of the REAL Chinese team)
twice and finishing with a 5-win, 2-loss record. We had Powerade Team Pilipinas
in 2009, this time coached by Yeng Guiao. That team placed 8th in
Tianjin, China and finished with a 4-win, 5-loss slate. We had our first taste
of the Gilas program in 2010, when they competed in the Guangzhou Asian Games.
Gilas finished in 6th place, piling up 5 victories against 4
defeats. In 2011, Gilas enabled the Philippines to break through to the top 4
of the Asian Championships for the first time since 1987, narrowly losing to
the Koreans in the battle for third. Earlier this year, Gilas 2.0, a hastily
formed team that was supposed to be the backbone of the squad that will compete
in the 2013 Beirut FIBA-Asia Championship, scored an unexpected triumph in the
Jones Cup before placing 4th in the Tokyo, Japan FIBA Asia Cup.

Can the Gilas program ever duplicate this moment
of sheer jubilation ever again?

Compared to the dark ages of the Basketball Association of
the Philippines (BAP) in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, the latest results are
certainly promising, but when one considers that these results could have been
much better had we been able to send our very best, then things, inevitably,
become a little disheartening.

With our very best talents playing in the PBA for
corporation-backed clubs with corporate-driven interests, the SBP’s national
program has suffered immensely. Players get tied down to their teams. In some
highly-publicized instances, certain players have had to wait for “clearances”
from their respective clubs just to practice or contribute to the national
cause. Indeed, what these companies, and the supposedly successful visionaries
and movers behind them, have shown us is that the culture of cutthroat
corporate competition trumps patriotic collaboration on any day and under any
circumstance.

This is why coach Chot has to make do with players who are
still in need of a couple of years to “ripen up.” In Filipino parlance, hilaw na hilaw pa ang mga ito, isasabak na
sa laban.

With this kind of framework, it won’t be a big surprise if
Gilas 2.0 crashes and burns not just in Dubai and Hong Kong, but in Beirut as
well. With this kind of framework, it won’t be a big surprise if Gilas NEVER
realizes its potential.

It’s not enough that we were seemingly duped by FIBA-Asia
when they gave the 2013 FIBA-Asia hosting rights to war-torn Beirut a few
months ago. No. We had to screw ourselves silly by disallowing the best from
joining the Gilas pool as well.

Look at the list of top-caliber players AVAILABLE NOW, but
who were not able to be part of the Gilas 2.0 roster – whether by choice, or
by… something else:

-Mike
Cortez from Air 21

-Mark
Caguioa from Ginebra

-LA
Tenorio from Ginebra (injured)

-Chris
Ellis from Ginebra

-Danny
Seigle from Barako Bull

-Mick
Pennisi from Barako Bull

-Rico
Villanueva from Barako Bull

-Willie
Miller from Global Port

-Gary
David from Global Port (injured)

-Sol
Mercado from Meralco (ruled ineligible because he’s counted as a naturalized
player by FIBA)

-Mac
Cardona from Meralco

-Cliff
Hodge from Meralco

-Chris
Lutz from Petron

-Alex
Cabagnot from Petron

-Jay
Washington from Petron

-June
Mar Fajardo from Petron

-Arwind
Santos from Petron

-Marcio
Lassiter from Petron

Will we ever see Arwind Santos don the national colors in his prime?
(image by Paolo Papa/InterAKTV)

When I look at the roster with which coach Chot will have
to work, I feel a surge of admiration because I know this team, despite being
formed in a far-from-ideal manner, will fight and scratch its way in every
game. They will probably lose majority of their games, but they will do so with
such fury and ferocity. They will probably go down, but go down fighting like
madmen.

On the flipside, I cannot help but pity coach Chot. This
is certainly not the roster he envisioned when he took the job of Gilas coach
mid-2012. He doesn’t have the “best tools” in the shed, not because of his own
shortcomings, but because of the incessant squabbling, whether heard or
unheard, seen or unseen, perpetuating Philippine basketball.

Saying
ang programa.
Saying ang pagkakataon.

At
dahil saan? Bakit nagkaganito?

A country’s pride at stake. A country’s fortunes fated for
the doldrums.

And some men, behind-the-scenes, perhaps up in their
corporate offices somewhere, idly watch and withstand their fellowmen burn.
They sip and sit, mindful of the massacre, but unnerved by it. The wants of a
few men have prevailed over the dreams of a nation once again.

And, hell, it’s Christmas time to boot – the season of
giving, the season of sharing, the season of unity. Apparently, all these lofty
ideals mean nothing.

Why just MVP withdraw TNT's entry to the PBA and let the whole talk n text team battle it out for our country I think its much better idea because talk n text team chemistry is superb and much like winnable in international type of play.